My Bestest New Quilting Gadget

Okay I am not making this up.  Today I checked the caller ID on the phone and it gave the name of the place where my Bernina is being repaired.  The message light was blinking.  I hit the button, expecting to hear my baby was back and ready to be brought home.....and...... FAIL.  Evidently the repairman is going to go out on medical leave and so all repairs will be delayed for two more weeks.  Rats.  I feel really bad for the repairman - I can't imagine what would necessitate 2 week medical leave and I will certainly say a few prayers for a speedy recovery.  It's kind of a moot point - even if the Bernina was back, I wouldn't be in my sewing room in these temperatures.  It's freakishly HOT, day after day.

So lets lighten the mood with a website that will make many, MANY quilters very happy.  It's a wonderful site  by Incompetech Creative Industries. Check it out - it is fun to just play with and see what you can create.  This site will generate grids, graph paper, hexagons, circles - you name it, you can make it.  The finished product is a one click download of a PDF of your new file.  I chose to make a 1 inch square grid on 11 x 17 paper so I could lay out my cherry blocks.  I taped a few sheets together and have this WONDERFUL surface to lay out and align the cherries, play around with placement - it's GENIUS!   And it's  free!!  You can change the line weights and colors, too.

You're welcome!

A Funny Thing Happened At Cherrypalooza

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So I'm working along, thinking I'll use yo yo's for the flower parts of the block and the authentic cherry appliqué circles for the "buds" part of the block when a strange thing happened. I made about 180 little yo yo's and was pleased to find I had developed blistering speed and accuracy in my yo yo-age.  Nice.  Then came the time to grit my teeth and begin the appliqué circles again.  Started, and failed.  Got some helpful advice from my quilting sherpa Debbie ("Starch the HELL out of them) .... and it worked!  None of this namby pamby 'brush the sides with a little starch' thing. Oh no.  STHOOT.  And it works.   So I started back in.....and the strangest thing happened.  I developed some serious technique.  I like doing them. The AC is on in the family room, so when I'm home I hole up there and sit and whip these things out. Then I run upstairs and iron/starch them, let them cool, pull the mylar templates out of them, and run back downstairs to cooler climes and do another batch.  It  rocks.  I'm close to having enough cherries and yo yo's to do  a 4-block wall hanging (a big one at that) done! The pictures above show them in the initial freezer paper cutting process and the ironing/flipping them over process. I press both sides.  PRESS. Not iron.  And I leave the little thread tails on them, it's cute and I can give them an extra tug when I finally pin them down to appliqué them on to the background fabric.

Here is the rub.  I think I could make a million of these little cherry things. Honest. I know I didn't get enough Kona Chinese Red to  do an entire quilt top.  Dye lots are sketchy - I doubt I could match the fabric, and I bought the last 2 and a 1/4 yards on that bolt.  The bonus?  I have a new-found talent and that makes me very happy. I will never again feel intimidated by a technique that is new to me, knowing that it really IS just a matter of careful repetition. The minute it clicks and you start exhibiting such skill is just magic.

Going in Circles

Cherrypalooza has begun in earnest. I'm not smart enough to hide my scissors during hormonal surges (guess who cut her own hair today....) but I am smart enough to figure out that if each of these blocks needs 52 cherries  I sure as hell better figure out a way to make that many without completely losing my mind.

So far, it's a draw.  I have a 0ne and 1/2  inch hole puncher thingie, so I'm punching out perfect circles from freezer paper. I then ironed those on to the fabric,   experimenting with cutting out different sizes of seam allowance.  Then I put the heat-resistant mylar circle (cut with the same punch!) in the middle of the fabric circle, dabbed a little starch around the edges and ironed them over the rounded edge. Meh.   A little wonky, with occasional points where it did not fold over so nice.

Second attempt - I took the red circles and ran a quick basting stitch around the seam allowance.  I placed the mylar circle in the center and pulled on the thread to gather the fabric around the edges of the mylar circle.  Semi-meh - a better appearance, but not that lovely, round, perfect red circle I'm looking for.   I read up on a few other methods  (using interfacing, flipping them inside out,  wet toothpick, etc.) but nothing really jumped out as the answer.

Then it dawned on me.  Grace probably had a quarter and a pencil.  She put the quarter on the fabric, traced around it, cut it out with a little turn-over-the-edge fabric to spare and JUST HAND SEWED THE DAMN THINGS IN PLACE.  That is why this quilt is so spectacular.  It was done the old-fashioned way.  I'm always looking for the quicker, easier, better way.  Sometimes, there just isn't one.  This is not to say I'm giving up on my freezer paper and basting stitch. I figure by the time I make a couple of hundred I'll have it down pat, right?  If my brain snaps, I'll  go to plan B and just make little yoyo's and do it with them.

Trouble with Templates

Houston we have a problem.  Instead of spending what little free time I have working on my quilts,  I have found myself on my computer endlessly auditioning and rearranging my blog.  There are templates galore, customizable headers, themes, pictures,  ink color changes - it's like digital quilting. I have addiction issues around computers. I can annihilate an entire day just surfing, reading, tweaking, looking at fabric, newspapers, video, and weird websites. Maybe it is just vacuuming avoidance, laundry  evasion or some other malady.  Maybe it is because the women in my family carry a procrastination gene that scientists dream about studying.  I do not know.  I just know that I need to snap out of it, unplug my computer (literally) and get back in my sewing room.